MMMM #578--- Coming Soon to a Deep South Newsroom Near You: Outsiders

     There is a new wrinkle to the ongoing and seemingly endless effort to revive newspaper journalism.  
     It's called "Report for America", a name modeled after the "Teach for America" program. From an interview at the Neiman Foundation at Harvard website:

"Sennott: I’ve been out in communities in different parts of the country, where we’ll be working with the first round of news organizations. We’re announcing very soon where we’ll start this, but I can tell you that the places I’ve been traveling are rural Appalachia, the deep South, the Southwest, and the Rust Belt Midwest."

     No matter how a newsroom gets the story to its public, it's the story that still counts most. Tweet, videotape, write, ad lib, none of that matters as much as the content. Oh, and the money to pay for the people who gather that content, so perhaps the Neiman effort will help.
     And most people still get their news from TV or online (which probably includes newspaper or broadcast websites):

[UPDATE Wednesday 6PM: PEW offers a podcast about how people get their news----though I would ask if people really mean "news" when they say they are getting it from social media.]

"The gap between the share of Americans who get news online and those who get it on television is narrowing, according to the Pew Research Center. Although sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube weren’t designed as news distributors, that’s what they’ve become. In fact, 67 percent of adults report that they get at least some of their news on social media—the data point for this episode. In the segment, Dan LeDuc talks with Amy Mitchell, director of journalism research at the center, about this new research and what it might mean for the way news and information are shared."

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Virtual Reality is invading journalism, so reports the Columbia Journalism Review this week:

The new technology, according to a new study from the Associated Press, is a huge opportunity for journalists to engage audiences. But it’s a big departure from how we’re used to telling stories, from lede to kicker. As report authors Francesco Marconi and Taylor Nakagawa write for CJR, “As the technology powering 3D models gets more advanced, journalists will be able to develop multiple storylines in a single environment. Audiences will no longer be guided in a linear progression, but will be able to choose different story paths as they freely explore the virtual space—a ‘choose your own adventure’ version of journalism.”

(The Monday Morning Media Memo is a regular feature of www.timlennox. com.) I'm vacationing this week and part of next week, which is why this MMMM is on Tuesday. We're celebrating this website's 10th anniversary next month!